Category Archives: Fruit

On a recent visit, my aunt asked me what I usually ate for breakfast. Yogurt, a piece of fruit…I began to reply. “Canned, preferably?” she said. She wasn’t kidding. Why would anyone prefer canned fruit? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense to me. Fresh fruit is the only way to go. So every once in a while, I buy a pineapple, chop it up, and store it in the fridge.

There are probably many ways to do this. You could buy one of those fancy corer things in the produce department. You could use regular knives. I’m a big fan of the Miracle Blades, though, and now that they’ve been out for years they’re pretty cheap. I highly recommend them. My sister insists on using the “Rock ‘N Chop” for everything. She’d skin an almond with this thing, I swear. I think she does it to make me nervous.

Anyway, I’ve replaced this monstrosity with a regular chef’s knife. So to begin, start with a whole pineapple.

Twist the top off with your hand. It’s easy.

Next I use the slicer and the filet knife.

Quarter the pineapple vertically.

Next, cut away the center portion. You’ll notice it’s different – it’s much harder. You’ll see where the separation is. This will get rid of the core.

Now I switch to the filet knife. This thing is great, because it bends quite a bit with little pressure. Insert it and cut along the length of the piece. Don’t cut into the skin. You don’t need to press hard. Repeat for all four quarters.

Now I just cut each of these with a chef’s knife, first lengthwise twice and then a cross cut to get chunks.

Seems like a lot of work, but it’s not. After a couple of times you can do it lickity split. And it’s totally worth it, because fresh pineapple is worlds away from the canned crap. If you want, you can even go back with the filet knife and get what you missed from the skins. It makes a kind of “pineapple carpet” that you can chop up, or just scarf right there.